American voters & online rights

Since November, American voters will have a very important task to decide which officials have the power to online legislation. To highlight the importance of the future elections, an association of online rights outfits has recently launched a "voter registration drive" across the United States.InternetVotes.org says its aim is to help people avoid such bills as SOPA and CISPA to be enforced. That's why a website was opened where people are able to fill out a form and say what they think of the web as a whole and how it is handled by the authorities. In addition, Internet users are able to use the site's widget to promote the cause.

The service claims that they changed the world this year when they fought off online filtering, and now everyone is given a chance to protect the web and change politics. Since the first week of November, American citizens will be able to decide who is in charge with online freedom. This is in fact a dire responsibility which nobody can ignore, particularly if you recall that it was a close call for the Europeans when Stop Online Piracy Act bill emerged. However, because of worldwide protests, which were mostly held online, SOPA was put to its tomb.

Nevertheless, this turn of events couldn't stop the House of Representatives, as they still managed to pass CISPA bill in June – which was in fact a worse version of SOPA that was targeting cyber security issues. Although this bill did not go well either, the House of Representatives keeps trying and trying again. For instance, a few weeks ago, the House of Representatives voted to extent the FISA Amendments ACT for another 5 years. Regardless of numerous protests and irrefutable evidence that the law in question represented a threat to privacy, the authorities continuously refused to revise the legislation.

There are more examples, with media report confirming that the FBI is trying to figure out a way to spy on the web on a massive scale. In order to do so, the authorities want to involve such Internet giants as Google, Facebook, and Skype into their scheme. In case of success, it will provide the FBI with literally unlimited access to online communications of all kinds. If you have something to say about this, you are welcome to InternetVotes.org to express your opinion.